Editing Lotus Improv (section)

===NeXT release===
After struggling with OS/2 for months, in February 1989 they decided to move it to NeXT. When Jobs learned of the decision he sent an enormous bouquet of flowers to the team. More importantly, he also sent Bruce Blumberg, one of NeXT's software experts, to teach the Lotus team about NeXTSTEP. One worrying problem turned out to be an enormous advantage in practice; as the back-end was written in C++ and the front-end in [[Objective-C]], it turned out to be very easy to segregate the program and track down bugs. Additionally, NeXT's [[Interface Builder]] let the team experiment with different UIs at a rate that was not possible on other platforms, and the system evolved rapidly during this period.{{sfn|Garfinkel|1991|p=35}}

Returning for a visit in April 1989, Jobs took the team to task about their categorization system. He demanded a way to directly manipulate the categories and data on-screen, rather than using menus or separate windows. This led to one of Improv's most noted features, the category "tiles", icons that allowed output sheets to be re-arranged in seconds. Jobs remained a supporter throughout, and constantly drove the team to improve the product in many ways. Blumberg remained on-call to help with technical issues, which became serious as NeXT was in the process of releasing NeXTSTEP 2.0, the first major update to the system.{{sfn|Garfinkel|1991|p=35}}{{sfn|Garfinkel|1991|p=79}}

Improv for NeXT was released in February 1991, resulting in "truckloads" of flowers from Jobs. The program was an immediate hit, receiving praise and excellent reviews from major computer publications,<ref>Michael Miller, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LjwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT73 "Lotus Improv Spreadsheet for The Next System Offers Some Unique, Helpful Advantages"], ''InfoWorld'', 15 October 1990, p. 86</ref> and, unusually, mainstream business magazines as well.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=-gQAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88 "Spreading Out"], ''CIO'', December 1990, p. 88</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=hOYXAQAAIAAJ], ''Newsweek'', Volume 122, p. 94</ref> Earlier predictions that Improv might be NeXT's [[killer application|killer app]] proved true,<ref>MacUser referred to it this way in 1991, see</ref> and thousands of machines would eventually be sold into the financials market, initially just to run Improv. This gave NeXT a foothold in this market that lasted into the late 1990s, even after their purchase by [[Apple Inc.]]<ref>Karen Logsdon, [http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartyHardware/NeXTSTEPonNonNeXTComputers/IntelHardwareForNeXTStep/NeXTSTEPonHewlettPackard/HP-NeXT-PressReleases/page658/page658.html "NEXTSTEP on HP Workstations and Servers Targets Financial Services Industry"], NeXT Inc., 25 May 1993</ref>